


Hellish Flames or Heavenly Fire (tentative title)

by Chiaroscuro (star_of_flame_eternal)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angels, Demons, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Insanity, Past Issues, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester-centric, Spirits, Time Travel, it's mixed up, or something similar, sort of, still human
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6983410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_of_flame_eternal/pseuds/Chiaroscuro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean didn't ignore it, but he didn't go out of his way to investigate it either. He wishes he did. He really does because now a new (old?) player is back on the field and tensions are quickly becoming high strung. </p><p>Some new monster conjured up from the ether by Amara has been bringing trace energy back into corporeal form. Trace energy being the remnant energies, imprints left by wandering souls. Impressions. neither here nor there, yet still connected to their original beings. </p><p>WIP: characters and tags may be added or changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Glimpse

**Author's Note:**

> Right so, only just started this. This will also be my first fic. The first chapter/prologue is really short, it's an introduction (like the teaser).  
> Feedback is appreciated, suggestions are welcome (doesn't mean I'll heed them though) ;)  
> I'm planning to outline this all out and really start drafting it during the summer. Once I get down the foundation, I'll start to update this more consistently.  
> Forgive my grammar, it's not terrible, but it's not too hot either. But the coherency is there!  
> Also note that character or two have been left out of the description, (don't want to spoil it!) and tags are overarching to encompass the general idea. I chose not to use warnings because I'm not sure where I'm going to go with this yet.  
> _____________________________

At first, he can't sense anything. But gradually, the surrounding darkness becomes physical; heavy and suffocating. 

Wrapped around his throat. 

His chest. 

He struggles to breathe.

He realizes he can hear. There's a faint shifting sound; raspy, punctuated by an intermittent crackling sound. The darkness begins to lighten a bit. Dimly, he can make out a blurred form ahead of him. He knows it's this that is making the sound of hazy static.

A cold feeling of dread settles itself deeply in his stomach. 

There are no words to describe the partially sentient prison that now holds two archangels. They call it the Cage, and when he tried to describe it to his brother once, he could only convey a pale comparison. A box; hanging by thick, taut chains, crackling with energy; a large physical lock box, safe-like. Ironic. But truly, there are no words, not even in Enochian, that can describe just exactly what the "Cage" is like. Its form twists and contorts in on itself. Constricting any movement. It shifts and roils like a fast moving storm cloud. As if it was the embodiment of nausea personified. It does crackle with energy, lashes out harshly with it too; not that it's visible though, at least not with the human eye. It's a terrific thought that such a tightly wound pit of consumption can be at the same time so vast, infinite with despair and absolute nothingness. No need to throw in a pair of royally pissed off archangels, the nature of the Cage would've been more than enough to destroy any surviving shreds of his soul after the fall. 

A dim flicker. A flash of light.

No.

A clawed piece of cold blue grace leaked through. A hand, he realized.

There's a jagged tear ripping through the agitated mass. The mass expands to loom over his consciousness. Desperation slams through his being-

_Sam._

NO!

_Sam!_

There's a swirling rush of everything at once and nothing at all. 

No, no no No NO DE- !

SAM!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short, but there's more coming, I promise.  
> Feedback is appreciated, suggestions are welcome :)
> 
> Placed after the Darkness is released but before Sam decides to hop on down to Hell.  
> Canon Divergences, but I'm not sure if there's enough twists and turns to be considered an AU. It's on the border, more like partial AU. Like parallel-ish instead of straight up perpendicular, yeah? This was in part inspired by how Dean said Sam's hell would make his tour look like Graceland, but always remembers Sam's time in Hell as only a year or so long, conveniently forgetting that Hell time runs differently. :/


	2. Reality or Something Else?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallucifer. Yeah, that about sums it up.

Dean couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about Sam's shiftiness. His brother was like a newborn colt, shaky and skittish. He couldn't help but wonder when Cas's makeshift Hell barrier in his brother's head would fail. The wayward angel had created a displacement in Sam's mind to try to stave off the worst of the memories. His baby brother's partial MPD. It'd been quite a while since Cas created the fissure between Sam's memories of Hell and the rest of him, but even though the memories were distanced and shrouded, Sam's physical responses to simple things such as touch were sharp and glaringly present. 

_No._

It was quiet, but Dean heard it and shot out of his bed, was down the hall, and across Sam's room in three seconds flat. When he got there his giant of a brother was impossibly twisted up in the sheets and curled up like a kicked puppy. Strangely, there were no flailing limbs. The reason for that, he realized, was because Sam had managed to restrain himself tightly within the tangle of sheets. Dean reached down to try to untangle and wake Sam up. Gently, he reminds himself. It had taken a few weeks after Cas had broken the Great Wall of Sam to train himself to not frantically tear at the sheets and manhandle his brother into the waking world when a nightmare terrorized him, and even in a rare still drift, rude awakenings were not a good idea. Unfortunately, with the way Sam had himself wrapped up in the sheets Dean wasn't really able to be gentle. He shouted Sam's name while he yanked roughly at the twisted mess. He finally felt some give when Sam's eyes flew open. Panicked, unseeing, dry. This was not good, not good at all. With one last massive heave the sheets loosened and came free. His brain didn't even have time to register Sam flying off the bed to the far corner of the room. One second he was in the bed, the next he was slammed into the corner scrunched up in an inhumanly tiny ball. 

Dean let go of his grip on the sheets to crouch down on the floor. He felt awful, having to approach his brother like a young, frightened animal, but it wasn't like there was anything else he could do that would bring his brother back from his night terrors. 

"Hey, Sammy. It's alright." Dean could tell that his brother can't hear anything he's saying, Sam being pressed tightly against the walls not seeing anything, but he continues anyway.

"Hey, come on. Come back to me bro'." Dean reached across his brother's broad shoulders and pulled him close. 

It worries him that Sam doesn't even resist. He knows he doesn't know a fraction of what Sam went through in the Cage, but living like he did with his brother made him keenly attuned to any subtle changes. And when Cas had broken Death's wall, Sam had acquired several tics and habits. Even when Cas had built his makeshift rift to try to separate Sam's memories, the physical second nature responses to certain things didn't go away. He recognized many of them from his own time in Hell, but there were a few he didn't. The lack of resistance sometimes when restrained was one of them he didn't understand, and didn't like at all. 

He could feel Sam's shallow pants and fluttering heartbeat. Knowing that his brother can't consciously hear him and knowing that all he can do is ride the panic out, Dean switches his direct reassurances to mindless humming. He thinks back to a time when things were much simpler. _If things could ever be considered simple with their lifestyles_ , he thinks ruefully. 

 

_He approached where his brother and Sarah stood as the painting was crated up._

_He catches their attention holding up the papers he retrieved. "This was archived in the county records. The Merchant's adopted daughter Melanie. Know why she was up for adoption? 'Cause her real family was murdered in their beds."_

_"She killed them?" Sarah asked for confirmation. Dean gave it to her._

_"Yeah. Who'd suspect her? Sweet little girl. So then she kills Isaiah and his family. The old man takes the blame. His spirit's been trying to warn people ever since."_

_Sarah turned to answer one of the workers, telling them to, "take it out back and burn it."_

_Everyone stopped and looked at her. Sarah tells them she's serious then asks him and Sam why the girl did it._

_Dean heard Sam say, "Killing others? Killing herself? Some people are just born tortured. So when they die, their spirits are just as dark," but he didn't really care so he replies, "Maybe. I don't really care. It's over, we move on."_

_"Ahh... I guess this means you're leaving."_

_Dean looked back and forth from Sam to Sarah. He notices Sam staring at him._

_"I'll go wait in the car. See you Sarah."_

_He stood there for a second, then nods his head and walks away._

_He grumbles as he's walking to the Impala. " I'm the one that burned the doll, destroyed the spirit, but don't thank me or anything."_

_He leans against his baby. He watched Sarah head Sam out and close the door. He shook his head in exasperation and turns to get in the car._

_Dean heard a knock and turns around just in time to see Sam kiss Sarah in the doorway._

_He smiles, "That's my boy."_

 

"Dean?" Sam's soft spoken voice brings Dean's thoughts back to the present.

"Heya there Sammy, you back?"

"...Yeah." Something in Sam's tone though gives him pause. 

"You sure?"

...

"It was something different tonight, yeah?" he prompts.

"...yeah." Dean waits patiently. Sam's still curled up against his body and since he makes no effort to move, neither does Dean.

"It was different, yeah...I, uh-" Sam huffed and twisted his neck so that he could see Dean. 

"Hey dude, take your time. It's two in the morning, we've got time."

"Sor-"

"And don't you dare say your sorry."

His brother gave him a wry sort of smile. Then he frowned a bit.

"You noticed?"

Dean didn't need an explanation, and he thought quite frankly that his brother for all his genius was impossibly thick at times. Then again, he was too he supposed. And he told Sam so.

"Look, this whole erotic co-dependency thing.... It's pretty accurate, even if we don't always acknowledge it.

"I thought that was a good thing. You know, no chick flick moments."

"Yeah, well...I think we're entitled to a few after all this shit the world's decided throw at us." Sam mouth twitches upward in amusement. 

"Alright." Sam seems content to remain where they are, but Dean's ass is getting sore from sitting on the cement floor of his brother's Spartan like room.

Dean sighs with an exaggerated air. "Sam, as much as I enjoy having your gigantor weight making my legs go numb, I'd like to move to your bed at least."

"Yeah, okay."

They move to the bed. Dean's eyes never leave Sam's hunched over form, making sure he's okay (well, as okay as he can possibly be) but his stare softens as Sam curls back into him. 

"Dean... I don't even know. I can't-"

"S'it still the Cage?"

"Yeah, but...," Sam lets out a strangled noise. "Dean, it's cracked." Dean doesn't know what to say to that.

"I mean the last time I actually told you what I saw, it was just the cage. Since then..., " Sam pauses, then abruptly, "Lucifer made a couple of shows."

Dean's face pales. "Wanna run that past me again?" He can't brings himself to believe it. He remembers the wreck Sam became after his wall fell. _You know they say that, uh, sleep deprivation is an "enhanced interrogation technique"? Yeah? Trust me, it's torture._ It's never ceases to amaze Dean how much faith Sam puts in Heaven and God even after all the shit that's happened to them.

"Sam, look at me, look at me...you gotta trust me, okay? Your never going back. You got that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"No, I mean seriously, Sam. It's you and me. See? 'Cause it's always been us, just us. Yeah, we've had fall outs and friends, hunters and demons, apocalyptic shit and-and _friggin' angels_ , man. But were right here now. And no freaky ass visions of yours are gonna change that. Trust me. Know I've done fuck to deserve it right now, but you gotta trust me."

"Yeah, okay."

"Sam?"

"Dean."

"Okay."

They sit in silence for a while. Dean is starting to drift off when something occurs to him. He nudges Sam.

"Hey Sam?" His brother shifts.

"D'n?"

"If the Cage really is cracked...Lucifer already has a connection with you, couldn't-couldn't _he_ be the one sending you this crap?" 

They both freeze.

\---

_It thirsted._

_It starved._

_It was ravenous._

_It needed…_

_It needed…_

_And so it pulled and pulled and pulled,_

_Trying to consume,_

_Until it had nothing left to pull from._

_And it ceased to exist._

_At least for the time being._

_It will brought forth and called back again._

 

Unaware of what its efforts pulled into being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flashbacks were taken from S1:E19 Provenance. [I included this scene because I thought it was a simple one that portrayed Dean's big brotherly feelings without being to much of a chick flick moment. (Which I realize is kinda hypocrytical of me considering that this entire chapter was pretty much a chick flick moment.)] And also from, S7:E16 Out with the Old.


End file.
